Let's say that YOU have been given unfettered control over government spending, which means that you have power to change the allocation of funds, the power to close departments/agencies, eliminate social programming, etc.

Where do you start and why?

I would eliminate the TSA, FCC, DEA.

TSA -Every year a new report comes out saying that private investigators were able to bring everything from Bombs to Guns on planes at nearly all of America's busiest Airport. Which begs the question why spend so much money on a program like this that doesn't work? Just to strip search elderly ladies, make people throw away water, and piss off Goth kids in thigh high Doc Martins?

FCC - The FCC doesn't share my values and I resent that we can watch mass murder and gore on every channel, from morning to night, but God forbid somebody say "shit", or worse yet a woman's mammaries become exposed. I think people should be allowed to watch what they want instead of diluting everything on television to palate-less stereotypes.

DEA - Nixon stared this agency and stared the war on drugs to divert attention from his other failing war, Vietnam. Now i consumes over 20 billion dollars of the federal budget and that does not include the money to house and feed non-violent drug offenders. That's just silly. America's drug prohibition is one of the last remnants of the Women's Christian Temperance Movement. Suffrage was a good idea but prohibition was not.

At 8/2/09 11:26 AM, awkward-silence wrote:
TSA -Every year a new report comes out saying that private investigators were able to bring everything from Bombs to Guns on planes at nearly all of America's busiest Airport. Which begs the question why spend so much money on a program like this that doesn't work?

To go from "Sometimes the TSA makes a mistake" to "The TSA is a waste of every penny spent on it" is unreasonable. An analogy might be "Wearing a seatbelt is a waste of time, because every year at least one person is killed while wearing a seatbelt. Ergo, seatbelts fail to prevent deaths in cars". Of course, simply wanting to trim back the budget of the TSA is a less obviously stupid aim, just one I happen to disagree with.

I'd also be interested to know how many times reporters try and fail to get gun aboard a plane thanks to the diligence of the TSA, since I bet it is way, way more than those who actually make it onboard. I quickly googled it to prove it does happen Here, but I can't actually find any stats.

To go from "Sometimes the TSA makes a mistake" to "The TSA is a waste of every penny spent on it" is unreasonable. An analogy might be "Wearing a seatbelt is a waste of time, because every year at least one person is killed while wearing a seatbelt.

The government took over after 9/11, believing that they could do a better job that privatized security, well it turns out that they do a worse job, never forget that the hijackings happened with items allowed on the planes by the FAA.

I'd also be interested to know how many times reporters try and fail to get gun aboard a plane thanks to the diligence of the TSA, since I bet it is way, way more than those who actually make it onboard. I quickly googled it to prove it does happen Here, but I can't actually find any stats.

I just wanted to point out that the reporter in your example that the reporter was arrested after he made it through security, and boarded a plane and photographed himself brandishing two weapons on an empty plane(and I can't find if he was arrested before his article went to print). That is not bestowing confidence in anyone.

At 8/2/09 12:24 PM, awkward-silence wrote:
In tests conducted in 2006 and disclosed to USA Today last year, investigators successfully smuggled 75 percent of fake bombs through checkpoints at Los Angeles International Airport, 60 percent through Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and 20 percent at San Francisco International Airport

WOAH SHIT! I had no idea! Thanks for digging that link out for me. If that's accurate (and its from a pretty reputable source - the online cnn as far as I can see) then I'm very wrong. I'd still say that there's more than a placebo effect though - if people are concerned that they might get stopped and searched, it will stop them from attempting to bring banned goods aboard. But given that you are more likely than not to get stuff through security, I think I now agree with you that the money spent on aircraft security is not as effective as I thought originally.

At 8/2/09 12:24 PM, awkward-silence wrote:
This report here http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/28/tsa.bom btest/index.html shows that a massive 75% of bombs are getting through LAX and 60% through Chicago. That's not the occasional miss, that is placebo effect. Everyone feels safe because they are being hassled.

Actually if you read the article the way it is written and not the way it is presented, the proper statement would be that 70% at LAX, and 60% at O'hare of bombs WERE getting through. Those were leaked results from 2006. They said that it is constantly improving in passes and no meantion is made of further test scores.
It also does not say how many tests scores were leaked if it was only ten results out of 200 tests you can't base an opinion on that. If you fail seven out of one-hundred math tests at school and someone pulled ten tests and your seven falures were in that sample people would think you suck at math even though you passed 93 tests.
On top of all that the guy said that test scores were not an acurate representation of success because as the screeners improve the tests get harder io make them improve further. The article made sure to place that quote at the end and the statistics at the beginning so that if you don't read the whole thing you would never realize that the stats were meaning less.
Sorry to say it dudes but you were both duped by creative journalism. Never let the trueth get in the way of a good story. You need to learn to read entire articles and criticaly pick it apart to find the real facts or find if the whole thing is full of shit before forming an opinion.

I would attempt to shed off some of the bureacratic bloat from the legal system. Court costs and processing times severely limit people's abilities to obtain a fair hearing, particularly in civil cases.

At 8/3/09 03:27 PM, awkward-silence wrote:
The TSA or Transportation Security Administration are the people at the airport demanding you remove you shoes and throw away the water they just watched you purchase.

In that case, I'm going to have to say I do indeed support this one. Sorry.

You know the world's gone crazy when the best rapper's a white guy and the best golfer's a black guy - Chris Rock